That potential possible drop in national HIV prevalence has been placed right up at the top of this article. Quibbling about prevalence consumes too much energy among epidemiologists. Do we others need to be constantly exposed to it? The luminaries at the New Light of Myanmar should recognise that sexually transmitted infections, although old, are hardly ‘venerable’ as they refer to them in the final paragraph.

The [him] moderator apologises for the late date and funny formatting of this call for expressions of interest for first round funding from the Three Diseases Fund. Attached is the PDF. The deadline is Monday.

Massive increases in the rates of congenital syphilis in China dwarf the importance of congenitally acquired HIV. Same as in Myanmar / Burma. The papers are attached. There are a lot of unproven theories about why Chinese syphilis is rising but little about the demise of congenital syphilis control programmes after economic 'reform' began. Myanmar / Burma has no national congenital syphilis control programme.

The [him] moderator has visited one of the new Chinese methadone clinics and was very impressed with the professionalism and quality of service. He wonders whether there will be leakage into Burma / Myanmar. Lots of people need it.

This is a good opportunity for young people from Burma / Myanmar to get involved – maybe some people who have not had many chances to go abroad rather than the same old suspects. Though it is too late to prevent the genocide of Karen people in the country.

It is good to get some good news at this time.

Good news for those who advocate for prevention of mother to child transmission. The following articles report on a journal article published Friday. Women who take nevirapine to prevent HIV infection in their newborns are not at risk of having their virus develop resistance to nevirapine. But the main task is to develop prevention strategies that do more than create orphans …

This is an insightful article from Mizzima on the cat and mouse game played between people exercising their rights to information and expression and those who would restrict them. No secrets here. ‘Freedom’ is cool and if any readers want to use a Psiphon site please let the moderator know and he will send you the URL.

This proposal for the Three Diseases Fund is available to the public at the UN Information Centre in Yangon / Rangoon. The [him] moderator apologises for the dismal formatting in the text but he had only a paper copy to work from. A Word version is attached.

This is quite an alarming story. But unclear. It says the NLD cares for people with HIV but does not say whether the Waibagi governmental hospital or the AZG (MSF Holland) clinic ran out of stock.

Agreeable alliteration in this title. Similar to devil and the deep blue sea.

Last week in this forum http://www.hivinfo4mm.org/blog/_archives/2007/1/4/2615727.html the [him] moderator asked if anyone could back up with evidence the statement of Desmond Tutu and Amartya Sen that “lack of attention to dealing with the AIDS crisis that has made Myanmar ground zero for new, resistant strains of this horrible disease”. None has been presented to [him] and so he thinks that they are just plain wrong. How does one go about telling two people of this stature that they have made a mistake? Ideas welcomed.